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July 09, 2026
 

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TECH

Fully sealed units are stacked on top of each other at Plantx's vertical-farming facility in Tokyo's Koto Ward on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 9, 2026
World’s first fully sealed vertical-farming facility opens in Tokyo
At Plantx’s facility, light, air and water are controlled in each unit allowing the system to tailor the nutritional values and sugar content of agricultural products.
Rapidus plans to sell its advanced 2-nanometer chips at around the same price as those already mass-produced by TSMC, the world's largest chip foundry.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 9, 2026
Rapidus to match TSMC on 2-nanometer chip pricing, Japan firm’s president says
The Taiwanese maker’s chips are expected to be sold at around ¥3 million to ¥3.5 million per silicon wafer.
Governments letting AI run much of their operations risk repeating past algorithm-driven failures by scaling errors, reducing transparency and undermining accountability for citizens.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2026
Beware of government by AI
That is a danger we must not ignore. We already know what happens when governments delegate decision-making to algorithms.
Dutch-headquartered Nexperia, owned by China's Wingtech Technology, is locked in a dispute with its ⁠Chinese parent over ​control and governance after Dutch authorities intervened in late 2025 ​over national security concerns.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 8, 2026
Netherlands looks to move past Nexperia dispute with China, Dutch minister says
Both countries are cooperating “extremely well” to resolve the dispute, Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma said during a visit to Beijing.
Sudanese women gather for a hot meal in al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region of Sudan on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 8, 2026
Misinformation inciting harm to refugees, UNHCR says
Artificial intelligence is exacerbating the spread of such misinformation and hate speech, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
KDDI and KDDI SmartDrone will study the potential use of AI drones for disaster prevention and for patrolling and inspecting infrastructure facilities.
BUSINESS
Jul 7, 2026
KDDI to conduct AI drone feasibility study in Vietnam and the Philippines
KDDI and KDDI SmartDrone will study the potential use of AI drones for disaster prevention and for patrolling and inspecting infrastructure facilities.
Liu Debing, chairman of Knowledge Atlas Technology, better known as Zhipu, attends the Chinese generative-AI startup's listing ceremony at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday, Jan. 8.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2026
A China shock is shaking Silicon Valley
One thing has become clear: Open models from China now pose one of the biggest existential threats to the U.S. AI establishment.
Choi Seung-ho, union leader at Samsung Electronics in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, in June. Cho secured a staggering windfall for semiconductor workers who were promised bonuses of roughly $400,000 this year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 6, 2026
Millennial Samsung union leader’s $26 billion bonus victory turns to bitterness
South Korea’s artificial intelligence gold rush has both emboldened a new generation of Korean tech workers and created new divisions among them.
Reliant on Nvidia hardware for AI training and inferencing since its outset, Turing now handles roughly 10% of its AI training needs with Advanced Micro Devices graphics processing units.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 6, 2026
Self-driving startup Turing gets AMD backing and adopts AMD GPUs
The five-year-old Japanese startup is adding to its capabilities as it builds toward a commercial launch.
Sharp is targeting ¥300 billion in new business sales by fiscal 2030
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 4, 2026
Sharp targets ¥300 billion new business sales by fiscal 2030
Sharp also plans to expand its satellite communications equipment business, including compact antennas.
Google has lost its fight against a record European Union antitrust fine of €4.1 billion ($4.7 billion), a development seen as likely ​to boost Europe's crackdown on Big Tech.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 3, 2026
Google loses fight against record €4.1 billion EU antitrust fine
The ruling by Europe’s top court is seen as being likely to boost the bloc’s crackdown on Big Tech.
Junichi Miyakawa, the head of SoftBank's telecom unit. The company's new AI-tailored-cloud venture, 49% of which will be owned by its parent group, has the potential to generate profit “on a different order of magnitude,” Miyakawa said in a recent interview.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 3, 2026
SoftBank plans to rent AI compute in U.S. at 10-gigawatt scale
The mobile carrier operator and group company will set up the new venture this month, aiming to supply data center capacity at a scale of 10 gigawatts by around 2030.
OpenAI has discussed giving the U.S. government a 5% stake as artificial intelligence firms face scrutiny in Washington.
BUSINESS
Jul 3, 2026
OpenAI proposes handing U.S. government a 5% stake, report says
The move follows growing public backlash ​in the U.S. over AI’s potential to cause economic upheaval, including layoffs, and could help OpenAI sweeten ties with the government.
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama speaks during an interview on Monday.
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2026
Finance Minister Katayama says G7 will discuss AI defense standards
Japan’s Financial Services Agency is considering using advanced AI models to conduct cyberattack response drills at financial institutions.
Apple MacBook Neo laptop computers
BUSINESS
Jul 2, 2026
Apple seeks to buy Chinese-made memory chips by lobbying U.S.
The iPhone maker wants to reduce the impact of a global memory shortage that’s forced it to raise prices across its product line.
An android at the Humanoids Summit in Tokyo on May 28
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2026
Japan plans sovereign AI model and 10 million AI robots
The country will reportedly invest around $6 billion in the homemade AI model, which will be developed by Noetra, a consortium of firms including SoftBank and Sony.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries is collaborating with companies including Nvidia to integrate AI and ⁠robotics, and last month announced a development hub in Silicon Valley.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 1, 2026
Kawasaki Heavy seeks ¥200 billion via new shares and convertible bonds
The company will decide on ‌the details ‌of the issuance as soon as this week, the sources said.
Panasonic Holdings CEO Yuki Kusumi has been revamping the business to cut costs and take advantage of global growth areas.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 1, 2026
Panasonic targets further AI growth to build on record valuation
The Japanese electronics conglomerate is attracting renewed investor attention as a beneficiary of the artificial-intelligence boom.
Officials from tech companies and South Korea’s government after a public briefing on the development vision for advanced industry in Gwangju on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 1, 2026
Samsung and SK Hynix’s mega South Korea chips gamble tests optimism of AI cycle
The tech giants won praise from President Lee Jae Myung after throwing their weight behind the government’s semiconductor push.
The government plans to invest ¥150 billion in Rakuten Mobile in a push to develop a homegrown satellite communication system and reduce reliance on firms such as Starlink.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 30, 2026
Japan to invest ¥150 billion in Rakuten’s domestic satellite project
The investment is part of a push to develop a homegrown satellite network and to reduce Starlink’s dominance in the field.
Japan needs caregivers. Young Indians are answering the call.
Young people in India's northeast are increasingly studying Japanese in hopes of building new lives and careers in Japan.
Osaka trumps Tokyo as both ranked among world’s top 10 most livable cities
Osaka’s infrastructure earned higher marks than Tokyo’s in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Global Liveability Index.
Japanese teen arrested for booting users off streaming service
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has arrested a 15-year-old boy for allegedly creating a malicious program and canceling subscription accounts on the Bandai Channel.
Japanese payment processor’s collapse hits banks and restaurants
Zentoshin served around 200,000 shops, many of which rely on early payments to maintain cash flow, raising concerns over their financial stability following the disruption.
Long-stalled maglev line finally gets green light from Shizuoka Prefecture
Environmental concerns relating to the construction of Central Japan Railway’s high-speed maglev line had contributed to years of delays for the project.
The beating heart inside ‘Human Vapor’
Different forms of love and connection form the emotional backbone of Netflix’s “Human Vapor,” says actor Shun Oguri, who plays troubled detective Kenji Okamoto.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.
Okinawa’s prized seaweed under threat as oceans warm
Local harvesters gather <i>mozuku</i> during low tide at Hyakuna Beach in the city of Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. As the planet warms, rising ocean temperatures are placing increasing pressure on the seaweed industry.
Japanese nail salons are tourists’ new obsession
Tourists in Japan have always been interested in quintessentially Japanese approaches to modern culture, and, increasingly, visits to nail salons have become the new hot thing.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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